Subject: Little Orphan Annie?
Author:
Posted on: 2015-09-15 23:01:00 UTC
I can see why if that was what you meant. 'It's a hard-knock life' and all that.
Most writers still have to figure it out that you don't have to make your orphanage absolute angsty and horrid to generate drama in a story involving an orphan.
Selkie is a webcomic about interspecies adoption and largely involves an orphanage. It may not accurate be on some aspects (that whole adoption line-up thing, for example), but it is a mostly happy and safe environment and the drama mostly comes from other sources.
Or if they absolutely need to go for the 'Bully at the orphanage' angle, there are better ways to go about it than shamelessly trying to rip our heartstrings.
Let's analyze the case of Hanako from Katawa Shoujo for a good example.
(Spoilers for Hanako's Route)
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Hanako's house caught fire when she was eight. Both of her parents died, and her mother did so while shielding her from the flames with her own body. Despite that, 50%
of her body suffered severe burns.
After she was released from the hospital, she ended up in a orphanage. The place itself wasn't bad and the staff was really nice, but as result of her scars and the trauma she suffered, the other kids there isolated her.
When she went back to school, her former friends also largely ostracized her.
In the present, she is a girl with crippling social anxiety that up until now has only ever had one friend at Yamaku.
Now that backstory is pretty terrifying and could easily make for some very cheap drama, so why is she a good example?
Precisely because the whole point of her story is that you shouldn't pity her and treat her like some broken and weak girl that always needs to be protected. If you do, if you keep acting like a White Knight despite subtle warning against, it will blow up in your face and she WILL despise you for it.
